When I first saw the story that two girls are to be raped in India as punishment for their brothers eloping, I was stunned and disgusted as I could not believe something like this would be happening in a civilized world. In fact I was so suspect of this that it was not some type of fear mongering that I read a fewreports, but unfortunately it looks like it is a very legitimate news story.

In essence what has happened is that the brother of these sisters has/had eloped with a girl from a higher caste (social level). This in turn lead to outrage by the village elders, who are very well known for their views on equality traditional social structures which are an outdated concept. In this outrage the khap panchayat (local stone age bush justice court run by the village elders) has decided that the only appropriate punishment for this brothers actions is to get his sisters to be raped and then paraded around the streets of the town naked. Luckily the family escaped the village and went to Delhi, however this is not their home and irrational beliefs find irrational ways to cause harm. So while a happy ending it is not in reality, as it has a displaced family, a broken relationship and a drug charge against the brother (which may or may not be accurate).

I should point out that India is trying to stop this tripe as khap panchayat have been banned by the Indian supreme court. However, this crime is happening in the boondocks of India where these types of irrational ridiculous situations still happen with the uneducated.

In closing, this is horrible but we can potentially do something from our homes hundreds of miles away by signing the petition over at Amnesty international. Its not much but it may get the ball rolling in the right direction.